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What's your right hand technique?

I think I used about 3 or 4 of them some years back when I was shedding more technique stuff.

It's probably the ones that don'es transfer to bass very well that will do you the most good. Anything that gets you thinking unlike anything that has gone before is a good thing. It'll lead to innovation with the music and the instrument.

Easy,

Janek
 
janekbass said:
I think I used about 3 or 4 of them some years back when I was shedding more technique stuff.

It's probably the ones that don'es transfer to bass very well that will do you the most good. Anything that gets you thinking unlike anything that has gone before is a good thing. It'll lead to innovation with the music and the instrument.

Easy,

Janek

Thanks for the reply. I don't think you could really do these etudes on the bass, but I guess anything is possible. The etudes I'm talking about are the ones with 3 and 4 note chords played in 16th notes. I guess it could happen. We'll have to get Michael Manring to show us those. ;)

Joe
 
Hey, Janek,

First of all, I must admit, I haven't dug into your music a lot (yet!), but all your thoughts and advices towards music, bass, NYC and stuff, make a lot of sense to me.

I wanted to ask about Hanon's book - do you (did you) experiment much with different keys, when playing those exercises?
 
Hey guys just came across this thread...

Right hand technique (or plucking hand) is something I cover with my students all the time. It seems it's almost forgotten about sometimes... everybody's worrying about what notes they're playing and now how they're playing them lol.

I put this tutorial together to show a couple of different methods you can use, and a couple of different exercises too.

Click here to check out the lesson...

 
Janek,

I think you sound fine and, to be perfectly honest, you're music is a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of the stuff that's out there. By that I mean that I love Marcus and Victor's music and what these two artists have contributed to bass playing, but it gets old when almost everyone else in the jazz/improv scene sounds the same as them. Ultimately I'm a believer in playing however one feels comfortable and natural without regard to whether others think (unless they're mentors or teachers who's role is to instruct). If that means you sound like Matt Garrison to someone else then so be it - sounding like someone is subjective in any case; I don't think you sound too much like Matt.

Getting back on topic, I bought the Hanon book a while ago and have done a few of the exercises. I usually played the bass part of the exercises, even if there were two or more notes played at the same time (e.g. the exercises with firsts and thirds played at the same time), and having a 5 string helped because I had two octaves under my fingers in any given position. I also found them useful for working on sight reading to an extent (I'm not an expert but hey, some practice is better than no practice right?). Having said that, they're great exercises for building technique, dexterity and facility, but they won't build musicality.

What I like about the Hanon exercises is that they get you to practice finger movements, patterns and intervals that you wouldn't normally use. I find this GREATLY improves technical facility to the point where doing these exercises will at least ensure a player has the technical prowess to pull off ideas in most situations. However, having the musicality to pull off the ideas is a whole different story...
 
Janek Gwizdala and Matthew Garrison don't sound the same AT ALL to me -- I'm talking about as musicians.

As far as equipment, they sound similar due to similar basses, but that's all I hear.

Time for listeners to open their ears -- how about every young popular pianist sounding just like Brad Mehldau these days? And I'm not even complaining. It's like saying all jazz bassists try to sound like Ray Brown, PC and Ron Carter. Of course they want to! To me, Janek is one of the pioneers of this new electric bass sound, and he is right there next to Matthew Garrison, Richard Bona and Hadried Feraud.
 
Id say Janeks biggest solo influence is most def metheny i think.....

I think its impossible to sound like someone else just like talking in real life..

We all use the same dam words all the time but each sound unique...
 
I've got the Gary Willis collection with full transcriptions of his solo's on a bunch of tunes, I've been using those to work on my chops and damn some of those lines are hard to play, especially if you're playing them at the tempo that he does in the recordings, they're killing me right now - easily the toughest material I've tried, makes the heads to Donna Lee and Confirmation seem easy in comparison.
 
wow, this is an old thread...! holy crap. And I must apologize for my late reply on this, been absolutely jammed through the end of this year.

I appreciate the comments and the kind words as always, and I appreciate that people hear differences between my playing and other people's bass playing. And like I always say, I'm a musician who just happens to play the bass. The instrument is really second to the music, and the more people who start to think like that the better I think. It's time for less bass and more music.

it's kind of hard to answer all the post individually so I'll try and get it all in in one go...

The hanon has been great for me, I'm still using that material 15 years later... anything you can get your hands on to play is great. Just spending time with the instrument is really important. Having said that though... I would stay as far away from transcription books as possible. The more you read out of a book, and the less you learn by ear from the record, the more of a disservice you're doing to yourself and your time. Train your ear by working on that material without a book, and you're going to find you're remembering more of it, digesting more of it, and that it eventually comes out in a more natural and organic way when you least expect it.

Janek